500 million year old poo

http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=3542&date=20060412
Published: 12th April 2006 18:14 CET

Swedish scientists have found half-billion-year-old droppings thought
to be from an aquatic worm and hope the discovery will contribute to
the understanding of prehistoric ecosystems, researchers announced on
Wednesday.


Some people think that the development of guts capable of producing
pelleted poo was a major geochemical event, with the high mass of coprolites and
their high organic content acting in synergy to remove carbon from the
atmosphere and biosphere, helping O2 levels to climb around the start of the
Phanerozoic (reasonably well accepted, these days), and so enabling the
development of new, more complex body plans.

--
Aidan Karley, FGS
Aberdeen, Scotland
Written at Sun, 04 Jun 2006 18:24 +0100, but posted later.

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